Fennikusu (artist)
Tragicomedy (often written as TragiComedy) is the name of the solo artist Betha Sail. She was also active in the band Fennikusu and is still part of the duo Imaginary Husband. She has been writer, actor, producer and director of several movies and she sang the themesong to most of them. Sail has also published several biographys and novels and is also known as the artist and as drawer of two manga. Rise in Popularity Betha Sail´s had the first success as lead singer of the german band Fennikusu (Look at the link to find out about Fennikusu´s success). While a time-out in 2006 she wrote her first novel "T.o.t.a.r.L.S.o.S." and the manga "Taransania", but they didn´t sell well and Sail had to pay several companys for using characters from TV series and other books. In late 2006 she entered Fennikusu again and didn´t publish anything alone for half a year. In the summer 2007 she announced to have written a script for a movie. The script was accepted and the movie "Chinese Cigarettes" was filmed. The audience didn´t pay too much attention too it, but the reviewers liked it a lot. Soon Sail was asked to play a role in a movie and she finally accepted a contract. The other members of Fennikusu complained, that Sail was concentraiting much more on her movie projects, than on her music career. It took the band seven months until their last album "Mesmerizing Dull Space Guillotine", was finished. The album became a huge success and soon the earlier albums and singles were bought, too. But in February 2008 Sail´s brother, the drummer of Fennikusu, announced he would leave the band, to marry and look after his family. Soon all members left the band and the Fennikusu era ended. Allthough the albums, old and new, all sold very well and the members became more and more famous, none returned to the music business. Out of frustration Sail wrote another novel - a very dark and depressing one: Uebermorn. It was published and sold very well. Now the audience loved it and the reviewers were sceptical. In early 2009 a movie was made to the novel, with Sail as writer, director and actor. As the audience was now screaming for anything produced or made by Sail, she decided to publish two manga, she had drawn, when she had been 13 years old ("The Chronicles Of Maila" & "Spekatukulus"), which both sold well. Sail spend the whole year 2009, producing, directing, acting and writing, mostly in the United States and Japan. The most famous things she published in that time were the book "Crossing", "DMdPA" and "Body Check", the second book to "T.o.t.a.r.L.S.o.S." - "B.i.t.w.S.", the manga "Spektakulus" and the computer game "The Women of the Night". Allthough Sail made endless money and was endlessly producing, she said in several interviews, that she was depressed and felt in very "Would Not Come" (Song by Alanis Morissette) - way. In early 2010 a fan site of Sail discussed the topic, of her returning to the music buiness. She was asked to that in an interview and said she and her brother thought about publishing a Best-Of album of Fennikusu (called "私たちは日本語を話さない / We Speak No Japanese ") . In spring 2010 it came out and sold pretty well. For a few months Sail disappeared and didn´t show herself in public. In the summer she returned and announced she was going to marry, allthough she didn´t mentioned... who. Only a month later she published her first solo single ("Kind Of Feeling Like Spending The Rest Of Our Life Together ", partly English, partly an unidentified language, she developed herself), as her own producer, under the artist name "TragiComedy". After some more singles, Sail published her first solo album "Spaceship... Marry Me ".﻿ In the fall of 2010 she met a old school friend (Kazi Htolga) again. Htolga had tried to start a music career herself under the name "Detectchess", but hadn´t managed to release a single herself. She had only been featured before by other artists and had been singing backround on shows. Htolga and Sail had been writing songs at their school time together and decided to record a version of their old song "Happily Ever After ". They liked the result so much, they published just so... as Sail said in an interview. The single was surprisingly tsuccessful. And as "TragiComedy" feat. "Detectchess" didn´t sound to well, the two formed the duo "Imaginary Husband ". Since then Betha Sail has only been active in the music business, composing and recording alone (as TragiComedy) and in the duo with Htolga (as Imaginary Husband ). She still hasn´t made it official, who she´s going to marry. Style Music Style & Languages ' In the Fennikusu era, Betha Sail sang most of her titles in English. The other band members refused to play to another language for quite a long time, only in the very last album "Mesmerizing Dull Space Guillotine " and on the Best-Of album there are a few songs in Japanese. Sail herself said, she loved singing in English, hated singing in German and simply adored any asian language, but only spoke little Japanese and Chinese. When she started her solo career, she sang in English, as she could really speak that, and sometimes Kauderwelsch (A German word for a strange language, like bafflegab or gibberish). In her opinion, you could simply better concentrate on the music, if you didn´t get the lyrics, still she found well written lyrics important. In the "Spaceship... Marry Me " album, she sang in Englisch, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese and Tibetan. Sail said, she hopes to be able to introduce the asian music to Europe and America, as it´s not very popular there. Sail´s idols are the canadian singer Alanis Morissette , because of her great voice and fabulous lyrics, and the chinese superstar Faye Wong , because of her interisting music and for beeing successful, with non typicial, only commercial music. Still she admits, not having reached any standard like them. TragiComedy´s music style is a mixture of Pop and Rock and some self-invented music style. She likes to put completly unexpected things into her songs, like a sudden stop, often a change of hight or an instrument added or suddenly left out. She also mixes many diffrent melodies. Sail also likes to use special instruments (allthough she admits, that she´s not able to play anything, except the vocal cords), traditional asian ones, as example. Sail composes most of her solo singles. Sometimes she works together with other artists, but no producer, as she produces herself. She also admitted in an interview to be unable to read notes: ''"I invent a melody - or write a text... and then the music, but I never write it down. I have specialists helping me, to be honest, I can hardly read notes and I am completly unable to write them down. I´m good at remembering melodies and texts... but I actually never write a song down. When I have a melody... and a text... I record an early version, to not forget it and listen to it, mabey change something, over and over again, until I´m satisfied and know it by heart." Still her reputation is, to be the "Leonardo Da Vinci" of our world of stars. '''Voice Sail herself says, it wasn´t her voice making her famous: "My voice is ok. You can call it nice, sweet... but it´s not as special as so many out there. I think what makes me special as an artist, is that I make sure, anything I work on, really gets a piece of art. I don´t have my producer telling me, when to show a fake small or when to accidentally show a bit of too much of naked skin." Her voice indeed is often called cute, allthough not girlie. There are some songs, where Sail impresses with a more powerful voice and some where she sings very soft and quiet. Good is - she can do both. Lyrics As Sail says, her biggest idol, concerning lyrics is Alanis Morissette. As she is not a native english speaker, she often says herself, that she needs to look up words or ask an english friend, everytime before she can finish a text. As she made intentsive english learning since her fifth grade in school and spended a lot of her time in the United States and in Japan (at both places she mostly spoke English), many call her English now pretty perfect. Sail herself is unsatisfied: "Yes, I can speak English well, but it will take much more time, until I´ll be able to play arround and use the language as Morissette. Till then, if it will ever be, I´ll have to relay on my musical talent and less on writing." Sail´s texts (most in English, some in Japanese) are pretty interisting, as she really tells about the world, as she sees it, and what she sees behind. She tries to use as many complicated words, as she can... sometimes to many... Clothes Allthough Sail says, clothes don´t matter much, she finds it important to at least look a bit proper. She herself dresses up very changing: Sometimes it´s what we call casual and ordinary, but sometimes she appears in pretty freaky dresses. "I feel good in casual clothes, but sometimes I really wanna be feminine and than I start making really weird outfits. But I love desining... I design all my album pictures and many of my clothes..." Videos The Videos of TragiComedy are very diffrent. Just like the way she dresses, she makes her videos. She directs most of them herself and writes the script. The videos often tell a story and want to teach something, but sometimes it´s just a weird mixture of colour and sound. Like the Fennikusu videos, some are programmed with the computer by Sail and a team of specialists. Discography List of the albums recorded in the solo project. *Spaceship... Marry Me *Shut Your Poem Hole (Mini-Album) Category:Female Category:Pop Singer Category:Rock Singer Category:JPop Singer Category:CPop Singer Category:TPop Singer